He shouldn’t say anything else. She was kind to be so reassuring, but Jay could tell Florence was made of sterner stuff, didn’t understand his fears to the same extent. She had never been as afraid as him.

“You – aren’t worried about all this falling apart without him?” He murmured, anyway. Fox’s actual son was no grand replacement. And Jay wouldn’t have even minded the thought of an unfortunate end to this whole business, if that didn’t also mean dangerous consequences for the others; and Florence, Imogen, Eli and even Hestia, a little – Jay felt bound to them, responsible for them, and he couldn’t abandon them to the law or to a collapsing life in good conscience.

(One was not supposed to have a conscience in this business.) “I just – don’t want to be here, sometimes,” Jay whispered very softly, leaning his head back against the counter and angling his face to the ceiling in sudden weariness. “I wish I was someone else.” Someone living a different life, someone who could afford to be honest and who deserved to be happy.

But he wasn’t. They were here, and the past could not be undone.

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